


Fleeting People

by LadyBrooke



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-12
Updated: 2017-04-12
Packaged: 2018-10-16 15:34:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10574253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyBrooke/pseuds/LadyBrooke
Summary: Maglor is used to everything fleeing away from him.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Taming the Muse on Dreamwidth, prompt Fugacious.

There was nothing to be done except to hope that one day it came back to him. In Valinor, there had never been a question that inspiration was always right around the corner. Even after they had come here and they were lost to the curse, he had still been able to compose every night and sing of their triumphs and losses, at least to begin with.

Then his brothers had started to die, and inspiration had started to flee. It became more and more fugacious, until Maedhros had jumped and he had lost it entirely.

He sometimes thought that it was just out of reach, hidden behind some of the obstacles that he walked by. Other times it appeared in his dreams, in the dancing of his cousins and the movement of the horses as they thundered across the plains in Valinor.

On other occasions, it was still in his dreams but it was in the frantic running of his brothers and him as they fled Formenos, realizing too late that Grandfather remained there. It was the shrieks of silver haired women and men with bows, as they fled before the swords of the Noldor, in trees and in water.

It was never there when he woke up though, and he missed it. It had been one of the last remaining parts of his childhood, and it vanished together with his oldest brother into a flow of lava.

It was perhaps the truth that he and they deserved to lose everything this way. They had caused too many to flee, and there was a certain degree of justice in the fact that it was gone.

But he had to keep chasing it. Running, down the coasts, because if he could catch up with it maybe he could catch up with everything else, and things would stop fleeing by as though they could escape him and never have to return.

Or perhaps he would find new inspiration one of these days. His brothers had fled and were gone together, but there were other sources that were still fleeting, but were still here.

Elrond and Elros’ descendants were still here. And he was not brave enough to go near them, but he still heard of their accomplishments from where he was.

And they were fugacious next to him, lives as short as butterflies and nowhere near long enough for them to accomplish half of what they were capable of.

But they did enough, and deserved somebody to remember them. So his inspiration would continue to ebb and flow and flee before him, but he would force himself to do what was necessary to remember them. There was nothing else he could do, even if he would never manage to record even a portion of it, before they fled too far into death for him to remember or learn of what they did.

His life was nothing but different types of fleeting people and memories.

He wished he could join all of them in it.


End file.
